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Pollinnation Articles

On January 6, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced the release of a preliminary pollinator risk assessment for the neonicotinoid insecticide, imidacloprid (Preliminary Risk Assessment or Assessment). In its assessment, ...

An honest discussion of genetically modified organisms must move beyond narrow concepts of human health to the wider social and environmental impacts of engineered crops. The GMO debate is one from which I’ve kept a purposeful distance. For one thing, it’s an issue that has already garnered more than its fair share of attention. For another, when you consider that many ...

Global declines of bumble bees and other pollinator populations are of concern because of their critical role for crop production and maintenance of wild plant biodiversity. Although the consensus among scientists is that the interaction of many factors, including habitat loss, forage scarcity, diseases, parasites, and pesticides potentially plays a role in causing these declines, pesticides ...

Bees play a crucial role in pollination and generate honey and other hive products; therefore, their worldwide decline is cause for concern. New broad‐spectrum systemic insecticides like fipronil can harm bees, and their use has been discussed as a potential threat to bees' survival. In the present study, the authors evaluated the in vitro toxicity of fipronil and noted behavioral and motor ...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its fiscal year 2016 budget request on February 2, 2015. The proposed budget is $156 billion total, with $6 billion going directly to loans that will encourage cleaner fossil ...

In August, India’s ruling nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stopped its legislators from accepting Monsanto sponsorship to attend a farm exhibition in the US state of Iowa. On the surface this might seem strange: attending the Farm Progress Show should be innocuous, as Monsanto routinely takes farmers, industry experts, media and MPs from various countries to visit the show and ...

Honeybee waggle dancers are helping researchers identify conservation best practices. The question scientists at the University of Sussex in the U.K. had was simple: Where do honeybees find food? But finding a way to answer that simple question seemed not so simple. Tiny radio or GPS trackers have a limited range, and it would take huge amount of work to survey fields on foot. Instead, ...

Invertebrates — including insects, worms and crustaceans — are usually pretty small, but they have a big impact when it comes to providing ecosystem services. In fact, insects alone are responsible for pollinating around 75 percent of the world’s crops, and invertebrates play a major role in recycling waste and improving water quality. That’s why ...

Bees have a crucial role in pollination; therefore, it is important to determine the causes of their recent decline. Fipronil and imidacloprid are insecticides used worldwide to eliminate or control insect pests. Because they are broad‐spectrum insecticides, they can also affect honeybees. Many researchers have studied the lethal and sublethal effects of these and other insecticides on ...

The Funeralcare Co-operative Plan Bee Wildflower Meadow Creation As part of the ambitious Plan Bee project (which aims to save the plight of honey bees and pollinators across the UK), the Funeralcare Co-operative Woodland Burial Sites have been awarded funding to create bee friendly wildflower corridors. BritishFlora are managing the habitat ...

Wind velocity directly influences pollen release rate from mother plants and subsequently, the transport of pollen grains. The threshold velocity of pollination is defined as the lowest wind velocity with evidence of pollen concentration above the threshold pollen concentration. Only a limited number of published papers deal with the relationship between wind velocity and pollen concentration. ...

A number of international studies have shown that children in developed nations spend an average of 55 hours a week indoors using electronics. Even though this means that the youth in these countries are techno-savvy, it often results in them spending less and less time outdoors. How do we change this, and get our kids to experience the wonders of nature, develop creativity and learn to ...

Despite widespread use of early generation testing and selection (EGT) in breeding for self-pollinated crops, its effectiveness remains largely an unresolved issue. This issue is tackled here using elaborated genetic models that enable genetic and nongenetic effects to be assessed for the effectiveness of EGT in terms of (i) the selection response at one or more early generations relative to ...

Quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping resolution of recombinant inbred lines (RILs) is limited by the amount of recombination they experience during development. Intercrossing during line development can be used to counter this disadvantage but requires additional generations and is difficult in self-pollinated species. It is desirable to improve mapping resolution for success of marker-assisted ...

Meadowfoam (L. alba) seeds are a source of long-chain fatty acids which are stable under diverse conditions. The fatty-acid composition makes this seed oil valuable for use in cosmetics, lubricants, rubber additives, and plastics. While a few meadowfoam cultivars have been developed, high-yielding germplasm is required for further crop improvement. The objective of this study was to evaluate ...

The tetraploid germplasm of bahiagrass, Paspalum notatum Flüggé, is an unexploited source of variability that can be used for the genetic improvement of this species as forage or turf. The objectives of this research were to develop a segregating population by hybridizing induced sexual and apomictic clones and to characterize the resulting population for mode of reproduction, seed fertility, ...

The coexistence between genetically modified (GM) and non-GM maize (Zea mays L.) fields is subjected to regulation in several countries. A strategy to reduce cross-pollination from GM to non-GM fields was evaluated, on the basis of reducing the flowering coincidence by sowing at separate times. The trial included narrow plots in which transgenic maize was sown before, simultaneously, and after ...

In breeding for self-pollinated crop cultivars, early generation testing and selection (EGT) is desirable because it allows for more resources to test superior lines and helps avoid the loss of desirable alleles that would occur if EGT is delayed. However, high intergeneration correlations (IGCs) are required for effective EGT. This study is conducted to determine the effects of linkage and ...

Created by the interactions of living organisms with their environment, ecosystem services support our society by providing clean air and water, decomposing waste, pollinating flowers, regulating climate and by supplying a host of other benefits. Yet, with rare exception, ecosystem services are neither prized by markets nor explicitly protected by the law. In recent years, an increasing number of ...